Dec. 6, 2012

A home on Bayshore Drive, Barnegat, was among those destroyed by Sandy. / PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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@mdiamondapp

New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Co. expects to pay more than $300 million to policyholders whose homes and cars were damaged by superstorm Sandy, making it by far the biggest disaster in the company’s 99-year history, it said Wednesday.

The company has closed about 45 percent of the 52,000 Sandy-related claims it has received. And it has paid out $100 million, it said.

Ewing-based New Jersey Manufacturers is the state’s biggest auto insurer and the third-biggest homeowners’ insurer.

New Jersey residents have made 452,000 insurance claims related to Sandy, but the total value hasn’t yet been released, Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for the state Department of Banking and Insurance, said.

The storm is expected to have caused nearly $40 billion in damage statewide, according to the Christie administration.

New Jersey Manufacturers said the storm was four times more costly than its previous biggest claims event: Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which cost the company $75 million.

The company said it is financially stable enough to absorb Sandy. State regulators last April approved a rate hike of 6.7 percent for New Jersey Manufacturers’ homeowners insurance policies.